Revenge of the EXOs
by sundroptea
Summary: One irate younger brother and three injured toes later she finally managed it, but only by replacing it with the question that cut her up worst of all. Why hadn't he called her? Not even once?


Title: EXO Next Door: Revenge of the EXOs

Author: sundroptea

Rating: PG? Not bad. I'd let my nephew read it, though I doubt he'd get anything out of it.

Summary: One irate younger brother and three injured toes later she finally managed it, but only by replacing it with the question that cut her up worst of all. Why hadn't he called her? Not even once?

* * *

Have you ever choked on a rice cake? Yeon-hee has, and it's not a pleasant experience- hot filling shoots up the nose, cutting off the air and spongy, sweet chunks of dough squish into the lungs rendering what air you have left useless. It's not unlike dancing on the threshold of death. She'd promised herself after the first time that she would never do it again. Curse her for a liar, though, as she was currently choking in much the same fashion as she had when she'd originally made that promise. So, the first few seconds her mind would have had to process the men in front of her are understandably diverted by her survival instinct. Her focus is solely on the water being held out to her, and not the hand that is doing so.

Once she can breathe and swallow and realizes that life will indeed go on, she registers that there are six tall figures in the room with her that weren't there just moments before. She wonders if it's brain damage from the lack of oxygen- is she seeing things? Was the water a hallucination? Is she actually laying dead on the floor of her mother's rental house (and she hadn't even started the floors yet- would her mother be sadder about the condition of the housekeeping or the condition of her daughter's corpse?), her blue faced body rapidly cooling, awaiting the next tenant's horror or worse, the neighborhood dogs? Her eyes shift from face to face to face and she wonders if the figments of her imagination can see the bits of rice cake still stuck in her teeth, because surely her mouth is gaping wide enough.

But Chanyeol is smirking. Like, full on, if they were still six she'd have slapped him by now, and rubbed his face in the dirt for good measure, smirking. That's when she knows that she's not making it up. She has certainly imagined his return (in many elaborate and varied ways) over the last six months, but in not a single one of them had he been smirking. (There'd been ones where he was singing, ones where he was crying, one even where he'd helicoptered in with an apology banner- they had gotten more ridiculous as time went on. One this morning had him burrowing into her Media Studies class through a hand shoveled tunnel from North Korea, where he'd been held captive without cell service for half a year against his will- especially nonsensical, as she'd just seen all of EXO on Inkigayo the night before, alive, well and completely un-captured- the bastards.) She thought he'd have more sense than that. She had already started to smile back, reflexively, before it hits her… six months!

"Yah!" She points her finger at the group in general, but she hopes Chanyeol knows that it's rudeness is reserved specifically for him. The boys start laughing and there's the general clamor that comes from a seven way group hug, when one of the participants is only half willing and the other six are post-adolescent man babies.

"Ms. Incheon, did you miss us?" Baekhyun is hopping and he has both her and Sehun in a headlock. She squawks, but can't make any other response because her hair is in her mouth from the nouggie he's trying to give her. Suho bats him aside, calling him a child, as he grins at her, but he too is shunted out of the way by Sehun who has also escaped.

Sehun takes her by the shoulders and looks into her eyes, asking very seriously, "How is Little Brother?"

She thinks about trying out the judo chop Kwang Soo had used on her last night by way of an answer, but before she makes a solid decision, she's being spun around again. Um, she wonders, when had she and Kai become close enough that this hug is warranted? One jar of face cream does not a bosom buddy make. Her cheek is smashed against the wool of his coat and if there weren't sixty other things going on right now she'd be blushing enough to get light-headed. As it is, she's just bemused and slightly itchy. He doesn't seem to be in any hurry to let her go, but there's a solid thump and she hears him say 'ow' and she can breathe again. She catches a glimpse of Chanyeol and for some reason he'd not smirking anymore but then D.O. is in front of her, and him she _has_ missed, rather terribly. She grabs his arms.

"What! How! When!" None of these are questions, not with her inflection, and he gets what she means and looks sheepish. He'd texted her three days ago, and there had been no mention of any forth-coming visits- that had been the time to mention it, and explanations weren't going to do him any good now. Yeon-hee does not feel at all bad that she is shaking him- top star or not, this little weasel needed some discipline. "How long?" she demands, and that is a question, but his eyes dart over her shoulder and doesn't answer.

"If you break him, our managers will sue you," Chanyeol doesn't sound like he particularly cares one way or the other, but his voice behind her is enough to make her stop. She takes a deep breath in, and steps back, finally having a moment to collect herself.

She turns in a circle and eyes each man disbelievingly. "Ohmigod, you guys are _the worst_!" but she's laughing now, and maybe crying a little, and she can see the moment the tension leaves Chanyeol's body, because his shoulders go down and he exhales and something around his eyes softens. She thinks he thinks he's safe now, and she is going to correct him later in _so many ways_ but for now, it's enough that he's here. Chan-ie's back and they'll figure out the rest soon enough.

* * *

It becomes more of a "much later" than a "soon enough" because pretty much right after the big welcome, one of their managers had burst in, and started shouting about an interview, dereliction of duty, dance rehearsal, and grey hairs, for some reason. In a move that was actually pretty slick he'd deftly herded six grown men, like school children out the door and into a van before any resistance could be mustered. She managed to catch Chanyeol's eye as he craned his neck back at her, over the shoulder of his manager who was now singing the Korean National Anthem. His mouth opened but he was being marched steadily across the threshold and by then his manager had already turned and snapped off a not entirely sarcastic bow. Whatever he was going to say remained a mystery.

She spent the time between the ambush and their return pacing, mostly. The new cleaning ajumma had arrived shortly after, and taken the keys from her with firm instruction to clear out and let the professionals handle things from here. She'd been followed by a not insubstantial team of movers who were hauling suitcase, boxes and equipment into the house at somewhat of a breakneck pace. Her subsequent call to her mother went un-answered, but she got a text message swiftly after, confirming the new hire, and something incomprehensible about a mother's prerogative to use their daughters for their own amusement. It was possible to cackle over text. That was something new she'd learned today. Yeon-hee had decided to shelve it until she could get her mind around the rest of it, first.

These past six months had been… Well.

There had been some good. She'd figured out a direction, at least. She was studying entertainment management, and finance, and her grades were good. She'd gotten into a temp program through her school, where she would be an onsite PA for programs that were filming in the area, and for promotional events. It was grueling work at times, but her sunbaes had been impressed with her, one even going so far as to ask if she had much experience in dealing with entertainment personalities prior to entering the program. They hadn't understood why she'd broken into semi-hysterical laughter, and she had declined to explain when pressed.

So it wasn't all rain clouds and black clothes and tearing at her hair, but still. She had thought, when she found the necklace and the mp3 player, that she knew what he meant by it. Only, nothing. Not from him at least. Days had gone by and there was no call, no text. At first, she'd brushed it off- thems the breaks when dating (dating?) your childhood-best-friend-turned-internationally-known-pop-star. He was busy. She could literally track it- tour date, interview, variety show, rinse, repeat. Today in China, today in Irvine, today in Timbuktu- it looked exhausting. It's not like she hadn't known what lengths Korean idols were expected to go to. She'd watched both _You From Another Star_ and _The Greatest Love_ , duh. It's just… One small text. Three words- I miss you. Two words- I'm okay. Anything. She would have literally taken anything! He could have texted her 'fork' and she would have been over the moon. Confused, yes, but over the moon.

But he hadn't. And after a certain point, it had seemed cripplingly awkward to attempt to text him first. Ga-eun had agreed (and gods, now, in retrospect, why had she even _listened_ to her in the first place? She loved the girl like a sister, but not once had she'd ever given her solid relationship advice. Not _once_.) and so she had twisted herself into a pretzel to keep from doing so. She hid her phone from herself. She downloaded an app that made her solve complex algebra equations before she'd be able to unlock his number. She actually did homework instead of playing Candy Crush, just to keep the phone out of her hands entirely. It'd had been a looooooong six months.

She had, however, texted D.O. She had made a (devil's) bargain with herself- no texting Chan-ie until he texted her first, just in case she'd been wrong about the whole thing. Or replaced already. Or something other equally horrible thing. But D.O. and she had decided to be friends. It was totally normal to text a friend. And if she maybe, kind of, casually inquired about the health and well being of the band, well, that was just being considerate and was not in violation of any agreements she'd made with herself at all. It also wasn't desperate, or pathetic, or a cop-out. She'd never asked anything about any other _specific_ members.

Well, she'd asked about Suho's foot, actually. And it wasn't her fault Kwang Soo had forced her to ask if Sehun had needed any more coffee, or to send along his thanks when a giant bag of prime Arabica beans had shown up with a note reading "Brotha!" Come to think of it, she had maybe even texted to find out where Kai had bought that face cream, and to demand that Baekhyun return the sweater he'd stolen from her- she'd recognized her thumbs-up-bear sweater immediately when she'd seen pictures from the fan meeting, and hello! She'd looked for that sweater for three months, and she knew the last place she'd worn it was over at their house. It was the night they'd all gotten slightly drunk and played Mario Kart until four in the morning. She'd stumbled home, tipsy but victorious, and her mother had just rolled her eyes and waved her upstairs from where she'd been napping on the couch.

So maybe the only one she hadn't asked about was Chanyeol. And that's another thing that feels super obvious in retrospect. D.O. had also avoided asking her anything about him directly. But obliquely? Turns out, D.O. was a great friend to have on your side. He'd made sure to mention that Chanyeol was working hard, and staying busy, and eating well in between funny stories about life on the road, or commentary on the scenery, enough that it didn't feel like he was patronizing her when he did so. Huh. He'd probably known exactly what he was doing.

Which was kind, and great, and another bright spot in a dreary kind of half a year. But it didn't really help with the main issue.

Maybe she'd gotten the wrong idea altogether. Chanyeol had been a rather serious kind of kid- not a wide mischievous streak in that one- but he'd certainly had some fun with her when he'd been back. Could he possibly have changed enough that he would consider confessing to her as a joke? She didn't believe he would.

But she could have misunderstood. There could be another little girl with a different toy? Maybe he was saying that he'd liked her in the past? Could he have just been acknowledging feelings he once had as a sort of good-bye?

All these questions made her head spin. And now that they'd returned, contrary to her beliefs, she had even more.

Were they back, back? Was this a drive by? Why had no one told her? How had they managed to get her mother on board? Where did her mother keep buying these rice cakes? (What? They were really effin' good, and it's not like her mom ever bothered to get them for her _own_ children.) _How long- how long- how long- how long would they-_

She had tried to drown out the constant chant in her mind by giving up on pacing and trying her feet at kicking Kwang Soo's karate stick, or whatever. One irate younger brother and three injured toes later she finally managed it, but only by replacing it with the question that cut her up worst of all.

Why hadn't he called her? Not even once?

* * *

She is in her room, laying with her head hanging off the foot of the bed, a textbook open, ostensibly to be studied. The reality was that it was serving as a makeshift drum/stomach warmer. She hadn't been able to get through even one chapter review. Freaking boy bands ruining her GPA, poplocking in and out of her life like it's some kind of game. Freaking boys in boy bands who may or may not have feelings for her, ruining her GPA and making her question herself and her sanity for SIX MONTHS. She kicks her legs in the air wildly in frustration.

She is looking at the stars out of her bedroom window, upside down, and trying to convince herself that she isn't watching for headlights to flash across the pane. She is not at all successful, but she congratulates herself on the attempt. It had been a solid effort.

She decides to shut the shades. She does actually need to study at some point, and it seems like they're not going to be home early enough tonight for her to feel comfortable loitering by the window in hopes they wave her over. She is an adult woman, and a functional member of society. She is better than a lovesick teenager, dammit!

She gets up to do so, and glances into the yard reflexively. Naturally, that's when the van pulls up, and they all pile out, looking whipped and beat, like meringues without the sugar. Chanyeol is the last one out and his eyes are on her window even as he hops down and bows to the manager and the driver. It's far enough away that she can't make out his expression exactly, but the wave is unmistakable. She thinks maybe Kai might have commented on it because he's unceremoniously punched on the shoulder from three directions.

Chanyeol stays outside and all but shoves the rest of them into the house as the van drives away. He points to the end of the drive-way and even though her heart feels like it's lodged in her throat, she nods, and signals 'two minutes.'

She pulls the shades, and presses a hand to her heart, hoping the weight of it might calm her pounding pulse. It doesn't. What happens if she's right and this was all a joke? What if they're only here for a week and this is another hit and run? What if… She lets the sharp edges of the pendant she hasn't taken off once bite into the side of her hand and the slight pain brings her back to herself. Okay. She can do this. No matter what, this is Chan-ie. This is her friend, who she loved, loves, and will love. Even if he doesn't love her the same way- even if this was all a mistake- even if he's put her aside, she will always be his friend, if that's all they can be. She is not a coward, and she's not the same frightened little girl she'd been a year ago.

Yeon-hee nods, and heads downstairs. Her mother has apparently just gotten home, and she and Kwang Soo are enjoying a ramen. Kwang Soo, she notes, had gotten the lid. Lucky.

"Oumma, I'm going out."

The placid expression on her mother's face doesn't overtly change, but there's something in the tone of her voice, something she would almost call… smug? "I expected you might be."

"Did Superman sound his dolphin call to you again, Noona?" Yeon-hee is at a loss as to how to even begin to respond, but she's saved from trying by her mother's sudden coughing fit. She appears to be violently choking and Kwang Soo rushes to get her a glass of water. It looks painful, but when Yeon-hee tries to come help her, and pound her on the back, she's waved away, dismissively.

"Don't even. Just go, and for goodness sake, talk to the boy,' she gasps out. Her mother throws her jacket at her from the end of the couch, and that is apparently that.

He's waiting for her, hands fisted in his pockets and she wants to smile because he'd done the same thing when he was little, even down to the way he rocks himself back and forth on the balls of his feet. As soon as he spots her he's striding toward her and it doesn't take long at all before they're face to face for the first time in what feels like years. She's abruptly shy, and she feels her cheeks heat up, and kind of wants to vomit and then die, but his eyes light up, and the need to leave this earth feels less pressing than spending another few moments watching that emotion unfurl across his face.

He just stares at her at first, saying nothing, and she thinks that she's waited this long for him to talk to her, she can probably stand a little while longer. She isn't going to be the one who starts, and she's proud of herself. Then it's like a dam burst, or a flood of some sort, and he explodes all at once, "I missed you, Yoon-hee-yah! I thought of you everyday, and missed you more every time. Are you well? Are you eating? What have you been up to? All D.O. will tell me is that you're healthy, and that's not enough at all. I want to know how you've been and who you've talked to and what you've done and why, why, why didn't you call me?" His hands leave his pockets and reach for- something, but he checks himself and shoves his hands back down into his coat like he'd been tapped to do it by the President himself.

"Wh-what?" she stammers, and she can't decide if she's angry or mystified. What sort of parallel universe is this unfolding around her? "Why didn't _I_ call _you_? Are you crazy?"

"Me, crazy? You managed to text D.O. just fine, but I'm the crazy one?" She settles firmly on angry.

"Yah! You're the one who left _without a word_! I didn't even get a 'so long,' and don't think I don't know about Kwang Soo and Sehun's epic hug off in the street either! I even heard about it from some very well intentioned, but confused, neighbors! Why should I have been the one to call you, when I couldn't even get a good-bye?" There's color in his cheeks too, now, only it looks perfect on his dumb, stupid, perfect idol face. Bastard.

"I left you a Matilda full of good-bye! I left you an iPod full of so long! And I left you a necklace full of see-you-later!" She was glad she'd tucked the necklace into her jacket, now, because this boy was about to get a beating, and she didn't want it to break.

"All you said was to wait! So I waited! An you know what I waited for? A call that never came!"

"How can you say that?! It was so clearly your move!" He threw his hands up in the air and looked the way he did the time she'd accidentally glued his blocks together- like he was trying not to rip fistfuls of his own hair out in frustration.

"My move? You're the friggin' pop star! You're the one touring the globe and packing stadiums! At what point does this become my move?! It's not like I'm the one with groupies banging down the door to get some of this!" She's in his face now, poking him in the chest, and she thinks maybe getting this close was a bad idea because even though her mind is telling her 'angry,' her heart is telling her 'head over heels.' Her body is saying something else entirely, and for a night in late fall it sure is getting hot out here, right?

"Oh you're going to use that as an excuse? It's my job! It's not like I've ever asked for them to maul me! And it's not like I don't have men around you to worry about- how is your so-called second love, anyway?"

"A- Don't bring him up here! He's been dating someone else since about a week after you left _and_ he hasn't really spoken to me at all since you went all cave-man and threatened him like a jealous crazy person! And two- yeah, well, D.O. found time to talk to me over the last six months, something your job never permitted!"

"Yeah, actually, let's talk about my girlfriend texting my best friend and not me! That's going to be a fun conversation, I can tell!"

"Hey! You can't say- wait, what?" Yeon-hee's jaw snaps shut and her eyes widen. Her train of thought is so completely derailed that she'd need disaster relief to right it.

"Yeah, nothing to say to that, huh? You must have ice water in your veins! I waited for you every single day and saw a half billion texts come through from you to him, but I didn't even get one? I had to call your mother to make sure that you would be home today! Do you know how nerve-wracking that is? How could-"

"Shut up a minute! What was that before?"

"What was what before? Your mom? So maybe I went- I don't want to say behind. I went _around_ your back, a _little_ -"

"Ohmigod, shut up! You're so stupid! Not that part! Say the other thing again!" He looks like he wants to shake her, and she thinks that maybe at this point she might let him. Because he's been stupid but maybe she's been dumb and there's a really simple solution to this if she can just get him there, and it looks like she might be able to pull it off.

"Which is it, crazy?! Shut up or talk because I truly, sincerely, _completely_ have no idea what you even wan- mmmfp!"

It is not polite for good Korean girls to tackle their men for skinship in the street at midnight, but no one ever said that Yeon-hee was traditional. Or polite for that matter.

He has good reflexes, she'll give him that, because he catches her mid jump, and he's kissing her back with no delay. His arms are tight and sear her back, simply with the heat and weight of him, and she thinks that the first real breath she's taken in six months was the one she'd choked on through water and rice cake. She feels alive and young and free, and she is so in love that she feels confident at least one song on the next album is going to be dedicated solely to her. She feels a few tears escape, and it's weird to be so happy and crying and kissing at the same time, but she doesn't care, she's so, so, so _happy_.

When they break apart, it's a sliver, not enough to be far, and she thinks that she is in for it later because if it's this hard to be away from him when he's right in front of her the European portion of the tour schedule is going to gut her like an anchovy on Jeju. She can't bring herself to care. She's laughing like a maniac, and so is he, and she frames his face in hands, and says, "Girlfriend?" in a voice that makes it not really but sort of a question.

He spins her around and around, until she's dizzy and lightheaded, and she doesn't know if it's from the circles or his answer. "Of course you're my girlfriend, stupid. You've been mine since you were six years old and you always will be. Apparently you haven't caught on yet, but that doesn't make it any less true."

She slides the necklace out and his smile is something she'll fold up into her heart to keep for later, when he's travelling and when she's busy with school and whatever career comes after that.

He kisses her again, and she's bent backwards over his arm, and when the fireworks start going off around them, she fully believes they're all in her head at first. But she feels one whistle by her ear, and pulls back to see her other idiots on the porch, setting off hand rockets and shouting like hooligans in the night.

"Woo!"

"Attaboy, Hyungnim!"

"Get yours, Ms. Incheon!" Baekhyun hoots, and it's a perfect, glorious, incandescent moment that she knows without having to try that she will remember until the day she dies.

* * *

When she finally goes home, some hours later, her mother is waiting up for her. "There will be some ground rules."

Yeon-hee smiles. She can live with that.


End file.
